语言学笔记

Linguistics
Chapter 1 Introduction: Language and Linguistics
 What is language?
 Different definitions of language
 Language is a system whose parts can and must be considered in their synchronic solidarity. (de Saussure, 1916)
 [Language is] a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements. (Chomsky, 1957)
 Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.
 Each of the definitions above has pointed out some aspects of the essence of language, but all of them have left out something. We must see the multi-faceted nature of language.
 As is agreed by linguists in broad terms, language can be defined as a system of arbitrary vocal symbols used for human communication.
 Features of human language
 Creativity
 Language provides opportunities for sending messages that have never been sent before and for understanding brand new messages.
 The grammar rules and the words are finite, but the sentences are infinite. Every speaker uses language creatively.
 Duality
 Language contains two subsystems, one of sounds and the other of meanings.
 Certain sounds or sequences of sounds stand for certain meanings.
 Certain meanings are conveyed by certain speech sounds or sequences of speech sounds.
 Arbitrariness
 The relationship between the two subsystems of language is arbitrary.
 There is no logical connection between sound and meaning.
 Displacement
 There is no limit in time or space for language.
 Language can be used to refer to things real or imagined, past, present or future.
 Cultural transmission
 Culture cannot be genetically transmitted. Instead, it must be learned.
 Language is a way of transmitting culture.
 Interchangeability
 All members of a speech community can send and receive messages.
 Reflexivity
 Human languages can be used to describe themselves.
 The language used to talk about language is called meta-language.
 Functions of language – three meta-functions
 The ideational function
 To identify things, to think, or to record information.
 The interpersonal function
 To get along in a community.
 The textual function
 To form a text.
 Types of language
 Genetic classification
 Typological classification
 Analytic language – no inflections or formal changes, grammatical relationships are shown through word order, such as Chinese and Vietnamese
 Synthetic language – grammatical relationships are expressed by changing the internal structure of the words, typically by changing the inflectional endings, such as English and German
 Agglutinating language – words are built out of a long sequence of units, with each unit expressing a particular grammatical meaning, such as Japanese and Turkish
 The myth of language – language origin
 The Biblical account
 Language was God’s gift to human beings.
 The bow-wow theory
 Language was an imitation of natural sounds, such as the cries of animals, like quack, cuckoo.
 The pooh-pooh theory
 Language arose from instinctive emotional cries, expressive of pain or joy.
 The yo-he-ho theory
 Language arose from the noises made by a group of people engaged in joint labour or effort – lifting a huge hunted game, moving a rock, etc.
 The evolution theory
 Language originated in the process of labour and answered the call of social need.
 What is linguistics?
 Linguistics is the scientific study of language.
 Observing & questioning
 Formulating hypotheses
 Verifying the hypotheses
 Proposing a theory
 Branches of linguistics
 Internal branches: intra-disciplinary divisions
 Phonetics
 Phonology
 Morphology
 Syntax
 Semantics
 External branches: inter-disciplinary divisions
 Pragmatics
 Psycholinguistics
 Sociolinguistics
 Applied linguistics
 Computational linguistics
 Neurolinguistics
 Features of linguistics
 Descriptive
 Dealing with spoken language
 Synchronic
Chapter 2 Phonetics
 What is phonetics?
 Phonetics is termed as the study of speech sounds.
 Sub-branches of phonetics
 Articulatory phonetics – the production of speech sounds
 Acoustic phonetics – the physical properties of speech sounds
 Auditory phonetics – the perceptive mechanism of speech sounds
 The speech organs
 Where does the air stream come from?
 From the lung
 What is the function of vocal cords?
 Controlling the air stream
 What are the cavities?
 Oral cavity
 Pharyngeal cavity
 Nasal cavity
 Transcription of speech sounds
 Units of representation
 Segments (the individual sounds)
 Phonetic symbols
 The widely used symbols for phonetic transcription of speech sounds is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
 The IPA attempts to represent each sound of human speech with a single symbol and the symbols are enclosed in brackets [ ] to distinguish phonetic transcriptions from the spelling system of a language.
 In more detailed transcription (narrow transcription) a sound may be transcribed with a symbol to which a smaller is added in order to mark the finer distinctions.
 Description of speech sounds
 Description of English consonants
 General feature: obstruction
 Criteria of consonant description
 Places of articulation
 Manners of articulation
 Voicing of articulation
 Places of articulation
 This refers to each point at which the air stream can be modified to produce a sound.
 Bilabial: [p] [m] [w]
 Labiodental: [f] [v]
 Interdental: [] []
 Alveolar: [t] [d] [s] [z] [l] [n] [r]
 Palatal: [] [] [t] [d] [j]
 Velar: [k] [g] []
 Glottal: [h]
 Manners of articulation
 This refers to how the air stream is modified, whether it is completely blocked or partially obstructed.
 Stops: [p] [t] [d] [k] [g]
 Fricatives: [s] [z] [] [] [f] [v] [] [] [h]
 Affricates: [t] [d]
 Liquids: [l] [r]
 Glides: [w] [j]
 Nasals: [m] [n] []
 Voicing of articulation
 This refers to the vibrating of the vocal cords when sounds are produced.
 Voiced sounds
 Voiceless sounds
 Description of English vowels
 General feature: without obstruction
 Criteria of vowel description
 Part of the tongue that is raised
 Front
 Central
 Back
 Extent to which the tongue rises in the direction of the palate
 High
 Mid
 Low
 Kind of opening made at the lips
 Position of the soft palate
 Single vowels (monophthongs) and diphthongs
 Phonetic features and natural classes
 Classes of sounds that share a feature or features are called natural classes.
 Major class features can specify segments across the consonant-vowel boundary.
 Classification of segments by features is the basis on which variations of sounds can be analyzed.